Can Two Tylenol a Day Keep Rejection and Heartbreak Away?

Did you know there is only one single characteristic that separates extremely happy people from "merely" happy people? They aren't more grateful, kind, or compassionate. They aren't more energized when they wake up in the morning (drinking the same amount of coffee as the rest of us). Rather, they possess an abundance of significant, meaningful, lasting relationships. That is, there are people they can confide in, call on during difficult times, and share joyous events that have absolutely nothing to do with them. Human beings depend on other people for their well-being and survival. We might even say that human beings have a basic "need to belong." For this reason, it makes sense that being rejected by other people might be as painful as physical injuries.

Across multiple languages and cultures, people use injury-related terms such as hurt, heartbreak, and "emotional pain" to describe what it feels like to be rejected by other people. The notion of being hurt by other people might appear to be nothing more than a metaphor. But getting your feelings hurt actually hurts. Researchers discovered this after scanning people's brains while playing videogames. On the computer, they tossed around a ball with two other people who supposedly logged on from another part of the world. In reality, the program was rigged so that people were heavily involved (getting the ball for half the throws) or excluded (getting the ball less than a handful of times over 5 minutes). The results were astounding. Here you have people playing a game with a ball that didn't actually exist with a group of people whom they didn't know and never expected to meet, and they really cared about the extent they were included. After the game was over, those who were excluded witnessed a plummet in their self-esteem and they viewed their life as less satisfying and meaningful. I can't stress enough, all that happened was that they didn't get the ball thrown to them as often as they liked. Clearly, little is necessary to make us feel rejected and devalued as a person. We simply cannot underestimate the power of feeling cared for, valued, and connected to other people.

But let's up the ante. What if you openly despised the people who played catch with you in a videogame? Jews being told the other players thought the holocaust was a hoax, Black people told the other players were members of the KKK, and Christian fundamentalists told the other players were atheists. In this situation, who would possibly care about getting the ball? The ball might even be viewed as contaminated after touching the mitts of these rival group members. Guess what? It didn't matter. Failing to get the ball thrown to you, even by people you despise, still led to anxious, depressed, and lonely feelings. And in these studies, when ostracized, the parts of the brain that lit up happened to be the same brain regions that light up when you get a migraine or slice through fleshy fingers while cutting bagels. What this means is that overlap exists between the brain systems that control physical and social pain!

Now, if emotional pain is processed in the same way as physical pain, then perhaps the same strategies to diminish physical pain might be equally effective when we feel excluded, rejected, or ostracized. Think analgesic drugs. Think Tylenol or Excedrin (actually, the active ingredient called acetaminophen). To test this idea, a few of my colleagues randomly assigned people to take a dose of acetaminophen (2,000mg) or a placebo each day for 3 weeks and provide daily reports on what happened to them and what they felt. By day 15, those taking acetaminophen reported feeling less painful reactions to being rejected on a daily basis than those taking placebo. The ability of acetaminophen to ease hurt feelings, enhance self-esteem, and reduce anxiety, sadness, and hostility grew stronger each day until the end of the study. Mad science at its best.

An inexpensive, safe method for soothing the daily emotional pain of our uncertain, unpredictable, ambiguous social world. Swallow two Tylenol, get rejected, and keep on ticking...

Life is an experiment, try it out and let me know how it goes....

***Want to learn about these and other strategies for managing the anxiety and pain of pursuing the good life? Some will surprise you. Contact me for more information.

The active ingredient in aspirin is not acetaminophen. The active ingredient in aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid. Acetaminophen is the active ingredient in Tylenol. I've heard of people taking aspirin to reduce anxiety/stop panic attacks. Did your collegues take aspirin or Tylenol?

very good point. I was using aspirin as an overarching generic term to avoid links to any particular brand of over the counter pain medication. To avoid the folly of my ways, I am going to go back to my original title with Tylenol instead of Aspirin. Most drugs such as excedrin are a combination of aspirin and acetaminophen. This study focused on acetaminophen.

My assumption was that people would read the warning label (of course, everything can have a warning label of potential danger from toasters to cars to babies).

Here is the juice:

This study provided 1000mg/day to participants. The average Tylenol is 500mg and the risk-averse FDA maximum dosage per day is 8.

Don't go near 8 per day for 10 days. Don't overdose. And remember, most social interactions are positive. Thus, if you are having more than 5 lasting emotionally painful interactions per day, you probably require a level of intervention more than an analgesic.

I found this write-up very interesting. And I think the overlap in how people respond to emotional and physical pain helps me understand why people often respond aggressively following social rejection. Given people have a fundamental need to establish and maintain relationships with others, it seems like a major blunder in natural selection that being excluded would elicit aggressive behavior rather than attempts to reconnect with others.

However this phenomenon makes sense in light of the findings discussed above. Aggression is a common response to physical pain and conceptually, this makes sense. But because the physical and social pain systems are so closely linked, perhaps aggressive responding to rejection is simply a defect response meant to be reserved for physical, and not necessarily social pain.

OR, perhaps there is some benefit to responding aggressively following social exclusion that hasn't been thought of (or at least that I'm aware of).

I remember you told us this in class last semester and it's all very interesting. I'm surprised that you're recommending taking Tylenol for such things though. Here's a link on acetaminophen and it's side effects. http://www.medicinenet.com/acetaminophen/article.htm

The link states:

"Unless directed by physician, acetaminophen should not be used for longer than 10 days."

"Doses of acetaminophen greater than the recommended doses are toxic to the liver and may result in severe liver damage. The potential for acetaminophen to harm the liver is increased when it is combined with alcohol or drugs that also harm the liver."

So why should people take Tylenol in response to emotional pain when they could end up with physical pain? Why is this even recommended? I'm confused, please explain -thanks!

My assumption was that people would read the warning label (of course, everything can have a warning label as long as we assume humans decide to discard common sense).

This study provided 1000mg/day to participants. The average Tylenol is 500mg and the risk-averse FDA maximum dosage per day is 8.

Don't go near 8 per day for 10 days. Don't overdose. And remember, most social interactions are positive. Thus, if you are having more than 5 lasting emotionally painful interactions per day, you probably require a level of intervention more than an analgesic.

But always remember that warning labels are often about covering asses, lobbyists, and money. Critical thinking trumps warning labels. Of course you could end up with a problem if you take acetaminophen irresponsibly. This is another column entirely...

Also I know some people won't take it 10 - 15 days straight and only use it when they really hurt emotionally. Even then, is it safe to take it when technically there's no physical pain because to me it's sort of like misusing the medication.

tylenol is a horrible product that should be used only when extremely necessary (high fever) It does so much damage, even at the recommended dosage when people take it regularly and I would assume that if someone is depressed or has anxiety, its a fairly regular feeling. Isn't that just masking your depression instead of helping it? At least an anti depressant has the goal of normalizing your hormone levels to bring you back to normal.

Psychology research never fails to astound me! This makes perfect sense. Anyone who has ever gone through a break-up or lost a loved one to cancer knows that emotional pain truly does hurt. In the heart. A gripping, painful sensation. I would imagine that when the term "heartache" was coined many moons ago, it was because its conceptor felt physical pain right where we live emotionally, in the heart. Keep up the great research, Todd!

There is no miracle way to take he pain away, it takes time and strength to fight the pain, hiding behind drugs is not a solution. People at drug rehab Washington would have so much more to say about that, they've dealt with drugs, they know what it feels like to "take the pain away".

A drug rehab facility is the best way to get clean and sober. You can disconnect from your negative environment and learn a new way to live....one that brings you happiness without the need to use drugs.

When I first read this article it was because a friend of mine posted it on his facebook. After reading it I wrote him this comment: "The article maked me think they're encouraging unnecessary drug use... someone could read it and think "oh I'm really sad and I don't wanna wait 15 days" so they take 30... not a supporter in drugging sadness..." but now that I've read all the comments I'm not sure.
I wouldn't recommend two tylenol a day to people for reasons such as liver damage, becoming dependent/immune to it, or abusing the drug. However, I know how it feels to be rejected and depressed. When I get those feelings I get migraines and chest pains that are fully stress related. I have to take 1000mg of straight naproxen to get rid of them (which is probably worse than tylenol). SO I figure if it prevents things from getting that bad, two tylenol at the beginning of the day can't hurt.

I have read this research too and was very impressed with its implications.

As a matter of fact, a few minutes ago, I took a tablet of acetaminophen because I had just suffered a massive jolt of hurt feelings.

It's an interesting process to watch: my floored reaction to the painful snub triggered an immediate, intense emotional reaction and a flood of upsetting internal dialogue and then the despairing thought, "Here we go again!I'm crying! People are so hard!"

But this time, I thought, "I'm going to nip this thing in the bud. I'm taking a tablet. That will soothe the bruised bit of my brain that's gotten itself all inflamed over this!"

I don't take these tablets often, but I have a lot of faith in them curing my headaches and other pain, and after reading this research that says emotional pain and physical pain are experienced similarly in the brain, I sincerely believe this tablet can dampen the emotional pain I am feeling.

Even if it's just wishful-thinking on my part, if it works, I don't care!

In fact, right now, I feel great. I presume the tablet has now had enough time to kick in. (Getting distracted by writing this long, complicated comment is probably helping as well!)

In this nice, calm state I am now in, I can now do some mature CBT stuff on myself and come up with some healthy rational thoughts on the problem that caused the emotional hurt.

I believe, used occasionally like this, taking acetaminophen is a smart way to cope with emotional hurt.

People are hard! They are the bringers of such incredible joy and such incredible pain. Sometimes we need something to help us cope with the bad times.

If they are, and they both inhibit the same pain response, I might be more interested in taking daily aspirin as heart disease runs in my family, plus there has been a recent study that daily doses may reduce cancer death by 16%. Can anyone weigh in on whether it's only acetaminophen that provides the ease of social anxiety?

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